Hamas communicated Tuesday that it had provided intermediaries with its response to the U.S.-backed proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, seeking certain “amendments” to the agreement.
The reply seemed to fall short of an outright acceptance that the United States has been advocating for, but kept alive negotiations over an elusive halt to the eight-month conflict. The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt — who have been key mediators alongside the United States — acknowledged receiving Hamas’ response and stated that mediators were evaluating it.
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Officials from the United States revealed that the country will send Ukraine an additional Patriot missile defense system.
The officials confirmed that President Joe Biden has authorized the move. It would be the second Patriot system that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine, although the Pentagon has routinely supplied an undisclosed quantity of missiles for the system. Other allies, including Germany, have also furnished air defense systems as well as munitions for them.
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Cautioning about the far-right Project 2025 agenda for a potential Donald Trump White House, a group of House Democrats has launched a task force to begin countering the proposal and prevent it from taking root if the Republican former president regains power.
Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California is unveiling The Stop Project 2025 Task Force on Tuesday, the latest sign that congressional Democrats and outside groups are treating Trump’s campaign seriously in the expected rematch against Democratic President Joe Biden this fall. “The stakes just couldn’t be higher,” Huffman asserted.
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President Joe Biden joined gun control advocates in advancing more initiatives to address gun violence and highlighted his administration’s stricter gun laws.
Biden’s prescheduled remarks at the advocacy group Everytown’s Gun Safety University conference in Washington DC, came hours after his son Hunter was convicted on three felony counts in his federal gun trial in Delaware. The president did not mention his son or the case during his remarks Tuesday afternoon.
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A federal judge struck down a 2023 Florida law that prohibited gender-affirming care for transgender minors and severely restricted such treatment for adults, ruling the statute unconstitutional.
Senior Judge Robert Hinkle said the state overreached when it barred transgender minors from being prescribed puberty blockers and hormonal treatments with their parents’ consent. He also stopped the state from requiring that transgender adults only receive treatment from a doctor and not from a registered nurse or other qualified medical practitioner.
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One person was fatally shot in connection with a bus hijacking that prompted a police chase through two Georgia counties on Tuesday, authorities said.
Police responded to a report of gunfire on a Gwinnett County Transit bus and a “possible hostage situation,” the Atlanta Police Department said. There were 17 people on the bus at the time, including the bus driver, according to Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum. The suspect, a 39-year-old man from Stone Mountain — was taken into custody without further incident, police said.
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A 24-year-old Texas man was charged with brazenly selling illegal guns and firearm parts while incarcerated in a Louisiana prison.
The suspect, Hayden Espinosa of Corpus Christi, Texas, allegedly sold weapons and gun components to an undercover New York City police officer in a case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg described on Tuesday as the “confluence of guns and extremism.”
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Banana giant Chiquita Brands must pay $38.3 million to 16 family members of people killed during Colombia’s long civil war by a violent right-wing paramilitary group funded by the company, a federal jury in Florida decided.
The verdict by a jury in West Palm Beach marks the first time the company has been found liable in any of multiple similar lawsuits pending elsewhere in U.S. courts, lawyers for the plaintiffs said. It also marks a rare finding that blames a private U.S. company for human rights abuses in other countries.
